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A deadly train crash in New Jersey on Sept. 29 that killed one and injured more than 100 underwent a rapid acceleration just before impact as it entered a busy commuter station in Hoboken NJ, according to the NTSB.

The NTSP stated that the train was rolling into the station at a normal eight MPH, but for some reason, about 30 seconds before the crash, it sped up to at least 25 MPH.

The engineer working the train stated that the brakes were operating normally. The emergency brakes were applied one second before impact.

The NTSB will continue to review the deadly crash and will make safety recommendations to avoid a recurrence. That could take more than a year.

The engineer told investigators that he was not using his cell phone and that the brakes had been checked before the trip. He claims no memory of the crash and remembers waking up on the floor of the cab.

There is speculation that the engineer fell asleep, but the investigation is continuing.

Our View

Our personal injury and railroad accident attorneys hope that this railroad crash in New Jersey will speed the adoption of positive train control or PTC throughout the commuter rail industry. The technology exists now to automatically slow trains that do not stop as they should, or are running well beyond speed limits for given area, but there continues to be delays in implementing this system throughout the country.

PTC uses digital radio signals, GPS and signals on tracks to monitor the position of trains. It has the ability to automatically stop or slow a train to prevent it from disobeying a signal. This has the potential to prevent derailments and serious accidents, including trains entering tracks that are closed for maintenance.

According to the Federal Railroad Administration, some railroads have made some progress, but many others have yet to equip a single train or track with the technology.

Congress passed the law in 2008 which gave railroads seven years to install PTC. Last year that deadline was extended for three more years. But according to Sarah Feinberg, head of the FRA,, railroads should not delay in installing the technology. Every day that goes by without PTC, she said, we are risking another serious train accident.

As of summer 2016, PTC is installed on 9% of freight route lines and 22% of passenger rail lines. Freight railroads have also outfitted 34% of their locomotives with PTC.

However, progress varies greatly by railroad. BNSF has equipped 3/4 of its locomotives, while Union Pacific has barely equipped any of its locomotives at this point.

Our View

Our railroad accident attorneys in Virginia hope that more railroads will get PTC implemented as soon as they can. It seems wrong that the technology exists right now to greatly reduce the chances of train collisions and derailments – thereby saving many lives – yet many railroads are dragging their feet to install PTC.

They may think they are saving money by not installing PTC, but as this $60 million verdict shows, a train derailment can be extremely costly for a railroad, both in dollar terms and in terms of its professional reputation.

The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) last week issued a status update that is calling for railroads to come out with Positive Train Control (PTC) technologies, which uses GNSS technology, as some as they are able to do so. This update also emphasizes the Obama administration’s call to send more funding to help commuter railroads to implement Positive Train Control.

PTC mostly uses GPS to prevent train crashes, derailments and unauthorized movement of trains into work areas, but GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) is a more advanced technology.

Both Congress and railroads have been sluggish to accept and implement PTC due to cost concerns. The NTSB has recommended PTC as one of the most important safety improvements of the year. However, the NTSB has been fighting a slow battle against the industry and Congress to get the systems implemented quickly.

The NTSB has responded to the slow adoption of PTC by noting that several major railroad accidents could have been likely avoided if PTC had been implemented. One of them was the May 12, 2015 Amtrak crash in Philadelphia that killed eight.

The final rule issued by the US railroad regulator is called the system Safety Program. Under it, railroads are required to develop a better and quantifiable safety culture within their organizational structure. Other requirements are to identify potential safety hazards and take steps to deal with them, while also showing how they will stay in compliance with FRA regulations.

FRA Administrator Sarah Feinberg stated that the new rule should help passenger railroads increase their safety over the next several years.

Our View

We are pleased in our railroad accident legal office in Virginia that the FRA is mandating more safety regulations for passenger railroads in the US. There have been far too many passenger rail accidents in recent years, such as the devastating Amtrak derailment in Philadelphia in 2015 that killed at least 10 and injured at least 100.

When there is a derailment, obviously the railroad needs to take immediate actions to prevent such events from occurring again. However, there also should be much more efforts placed on improving the safety culture within the organization so that these tragedies never happen again.

Another tragedy occurred in April 2016, when an Amtrak train slammed into two workers on a track that they thought was closed for maintenance. The train hit them at full speed on their truck and they were killed instantly.

A better safety culture also will prevent these railroads for being sued for millions of dollars in a wrongful death lawsuit. We won a $60 million settlement in a train derailment case a few years ago. While we were pleased with the result, it would be better if the accident never happened with better oversight by the railroad.

Connecticut Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro is leading an effort on Capitol Hill to reintroduce the Rail Safety Enforcement Act, which would mandate that railroads establish and implement a Fatigue Management Plan. It also would provide railroad workers with a defined start time, or at least 10 hours notice before reporting to the job.

DeLauro made the announcement at the West Haven CT train station on Wednesday. This was the location where a Metro-North Railroad train struck a track supervisor and killed him in May 2013.

At the announcement, a former railroad conductor commented that the biggest safety issue in the railroad industry is ‘fatigue, fatigue and fatigue.’ Francis Ariola is now the legislative director of the Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation union’s Transportation Division. He noted that union members are plagued with constant fatigue because they have extremely unpredictable work schedules.

Ariola noted that many workers are on call 24/7 and get as little as 90 minutes notice when they have to report for work.

The fate of the Rail Safety Enforcement Act is uncertain at this time, given that it is a presidential election year.

Our railroad accident attorneys truly hope that the Rail Safety Enforcement Act is passed into law soon so that train engineers will be able to get the much needed rest they need to prevent many train accidents. Some train accidents lead to major accidents that leave crash victims devastated and injured for life, such as this $60 million personal injury verdict we worked in in 2000. Any law that can reduce the chances of such a terrible accident is worth it.

The general manager, Paul Wiedefeld, followed through on earlier threats to fire managers in the troubled public transit system, after a catastrophic start to the year with multiple tunnel fire and smoke incidents that sickened many passengers. Also, a smoke and fire incident in 2015 led to the death of one woman and more than 70 personal injury suits for people who were sickened by smoke.

The mass firings came just a few days after DC Metro introduced a new ten month repair plan called SafeTrack that will result in virtual 24/7 work on metro tracks and equipment. This will result in entire sections of the system being closed for days at a time and many instances of single tracking trains during rush hour. This will cause major delays and headaches for tens of thousands of workers, but is viewed as essential to making the system safe.

Our train crash and accident lawyers in Virginia hope that DC Metro gets its act together soon. We have reported on the above tragic train disaster in 2015 before. Defective power cables generated a massive smoke cloud that overwhelmed hundreds of passengers. Passengers tried to flee the train by forcing open the doors. Power was cut off to stop the fire on the tracks, which meant that the train could not move, leaving passengers trapped.

We hope that the new safety emphasis with Metro means that there will be no more injuries and deaths, but if there is, we also hope that the injured parties will seek the counsel of experienced train accident personal injury lawyers.

The Federal Railroad Administration has started to take applications from local governments, states and railroads for $25 million in grants to fund their railroad safety efforts.

Applicants can ask for funds for safety upgrades to railroad crossings, tracks, tunnels, yards, bridges, etc. The grants have been made available under the 2016 Consolidated Appropriations Act.

According to US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx, as the population of the US grows, rail is playing a bigger role in moving people and freight around the US. “To do that safely, we must invest in our rail infrastructure,” he said last week.

FRA stated that it would accept railroad safety funding applications until June 14.

Our railroad accident attorneys are pleased that FRA is making these funds available to upgrade railroad safety in America. Our railroad accident lawyers have represented many clients who have suffered serious injuries, or their loved ones have even died, in various types of railroad accidents.

Whenever we see the federal government improving railroad crossings it certainly is a positive, especially for railroad crossing safety. However, when a railroad that owns the tracks that run over those highway crossings is sued because of injury or death, that’s the moment that the railroad claims that they have very little or no responsibility whatsoever. What most consumers may find surprising is that the railroads often receive money from state or federal government for lights or gates at crossings and do everything they can to avoid paying for them.

Even in the face of prior injuries or deaths at the crossing, the railroads who operate on the tracks argue that it should not be their responsibility to pay for gates or lights because the public has built a highway across their Railroad right-of-way. Their position, often overlooked by the public, is that it is local, state or federal government that should improve the safety of motorists traveling across the railroad crossing.

This type of multiple party responsibility is exactly what makes civil injury or death litigation at railroad crossings complex. Indeed, most states have variable or different jury instructions in these types of cases that dictate the railroad’s responsibility at a railroad crossing collision.

Many people do not know that the railroad company that uses that crossing is responsible for maintaining the safety of the crossing. The safety gates must work and flashing lights must be operational, and all vegetation and grass needs to be regularly cut away from the tracks to not obscure driver vision.

A good railroad accident attorney with experience in the state in which the accident occurred can be invaluable in recovering damages in a lawsuit. For example, our railroad accident lawyers bring in retired railroad workers to investigate railroad crossing accidents. Using their expert testimony, we have been able to prove in some cases that appropriate precautions were not taken at some railroad crossings.

The widow of the deceased train worker, Larry Sells, appealed to the FL Supreme Court after the First District Court of Appeal ruled for CSX in the medical negligence case. Sells died from a heart attack in August 2006 after he went to manually operate a track switch in a remote part of Clay County FL.

A co-worker found him within two minutes and called CSX for help, but the dispatcher could not clearly communicate where the stricken man was, and the EMTs did not arrive for 35 minutes.

The lawsuit alleges that CSX did not provide a safe workplace, which should have included a lack of automated external defibrillators.

The First District Court of Appeals sided with CSX last May, stating that while CSX did have to provide prompt medical treatment once it knew the man was ill, it did not have a duty to take measures in advance to prevent such an emergency situation.

However, the widow’s attorneys argued that CSX breached its duties under the Federal Employers Liability Act (FELA) and that the appeal court ruling could have serious repercussions throughout the US.

The brief filed by the plaintiff’s attorney stated that the appeals court decision could be used by FELA employers in state and federal courts to support their failure to take preemptive measures to ensure their workers get quick medical care in an emergency.

Several members of Congress from Colorado, including several representatives in the House and both US senators, applauded the FRA’s move and urged residents of the state as well as local government officials to provide comments to the railroad agency.

Many politicians say that train horn noise is a serious issue for communities across Colorado and many other states. They say that they are advocating for flexibility in train horn rules to help some communities create more quiet zones that can increase economic development.

Current FRA rules that were set up 2005 allow communities to apply for permission from the federal government to create a quiet zone where the train horn rules can be relaxed IF the community puts up flashing lights and barrier gates.

Local government officials complain that it is too expensive for them to satisfy FRA’s requirement to set up quiet zones in this way.

Current rules state that train engineers must sound their horn for at least 15 seconds in advance of reaching a train crossing.

Our railroad accident attorneys in Virginia understand the concerns that some residents have regarding train horn noise. The problem is that safety gates are not a 100% solution. We have seen many train/car accidents over the years where the safety gates malfunction and stay up as the train is approaching.

We also have seen railroad crossings in some cases that were not properly maintained, with too much vegetation obstructing the view of the driver at the crossing. Our railroad accident lawyers have handled cases with sizable settlements where serious accidents have occurred at railroad crossings.

So, it is important for concerns over train horn noise to be considered in light of the fact that train horns sounding at crossings save lives.

Also, we think that the outcry over train horn noise only reinforces that positive train control systems must be implemented sooner rather than later, but the Federal Railroad Administration keeps allowing railroads to lobby for delays on implementation of PTC systems for the nation’s railroads. These are the systems that automatically can slow and stop a train if it detects a vehicle on a railroad crossing, or that the train crossing lights and gates are activated.

There are more than 4,000 miles of track in Indiana, Brian Farkas wrote, and he argues in the article that an excellent safety record in the state could be jeopardized if railroad carriers reduce crew sizes to save money.

The possible action stems from the Railroad Safety Improvement Act that Congress passed in 2008. It featured provisions to require positive train control technology on all railroads. This new technology, while a vast safety improvement, was not designed to effectively replace a crew member. Rather, it is designed to reduce train crashes.

Farkas wrote that he thinks it would be a dangerous error if the state legislature agreed to reduce train crew sizes. A member of the state legislature in Indiana recently introduced a new bill that would require all freight train crews to consist of at least two engineers. Naturally, the bill is strongly opposed by railroad industry lobbying groups.

The chairman urged Indiana readers to call their state representatives to voice their support for the train safety bill.

We certainly hope that the state legislature in Indiana does not decide to allow railroads to reduce their freight train crews. Every train crew should have at least two members to ensure that the train is being operated safely. The news media has been filled with recent stories of serious train accidents and derailments that led to loss of life. A train collision with another train in 2008 led to several deaths, and all was because the lone train operator was on her cell phone.

Our Virginia personal injury law firm works often on railroad accident cases, such as this $190,000 settlement. Anything that can be done to reduce the chances of train accidents sounds good to us.